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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Waste Development

For a few years now our town has had a lot of bickering over rubbish. Real rubbish, not nonsense. We are running out of dump space (called "landfill area" now). Dumping fees have skyrocketed and until recently there hasn't been much recycling available. The recycling has gotten better and easier, accepting more types of items being the most important issue. Personally I throw out one kitchen trashcan-sized bag every 2 weeks and recycle 4 times that much, at least. But now I buy with an eye to what waste things will generate and reuse containers whenever I can. It gets to be second nature after a while.

But what seems to be glaringly obvious to me is that some smarty smartster should be turning all that trash into money. Why not chemically analyze what's in all this trash that's mouldering on our lands and invent some things that could run on them? We're running out of fuels for the old contraptions and whoever took the time and effort to make all garbage valuable would probably get a Nobel Prize as well as rich.

In Vermont, there's a program to get energy from cow manure that the electric company sponsors. Great idea. There are businesses that reclaim building parts and features to be reused in new construction. In these tough economic times it's a thriving business. Brilliant. But think of all the garbage worldwide (and don't forget the island of garbage in the Pacific) and what an unending resource it is. Is anyone thinking about this? Surely if I'm thinking along these lines others are. People say, "But there's nothing that uses (whatever substance) as fuel." Well for Christsakes, work it out. Invent things that do. There are brainiacs around, get them working on it.

It's high time we stop working with adapting outdated models and make new things altogether anyway. The population keeps growing and making more waste. We need to stop doing waste management and work toward waste development.

3 comments:

I'm sure I had a conversation about this once with B. It would be a perfect solution. I remember they were developing bacteria eating bugs, waaay back, at British Nuclear Fuels. You really would think that the energy captured in breaking down waste could be used to generate power. I wish I had been born with a science-brain, I tell ya. I hope the right person sees your post!